A missing Cape Charles swimmer's body was recovered Monday after the teenager went missing in the waters off Cape Charles the evening before.

Cape Charles Police Chief Jim Pruitt confirmed Alvaro Lopez' body was found at 2:40 p.m. in 5 feet of water about 200 yards off shore.

"Just watch your kids — this is twice," said a visibly emotional Pruitt in a brief news conference.

Family members of the teenager gathered in prayer shortly after the body was recovered from the Chesapeake Bay. Family friend Victoria Cabrera made the following statement: "We want to say thank you to everybody around here" for the food, drinks and other support offered the family during the ordeal.

A friend identified the 15-year-old, whose body slipped under the surface of the water off Cape Charles, as a Nandua High School student. Lopez, 15, of Tasley recently completed ninth grade at Nandua. He went missing Sunday, June 21.

"Me and him were, like, close friends," said Irving Saucedo.

The friends played soccer together at the high school, he said.

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A small group of people watches a recovery effort at Cape Charles Beach on Monday, June 22, 2015. The Coast Guard was alerted to a report of a missing swimmer Sunday night. According to the Coast Guard a 15-year-old swimmer went missing near the town's fishing pier.(Photo: Staff photo by Jay Diem)

Coast Guard Sector Hampton Roads watchstanders received a call from the Northampton County Sheriff's Office at about 6:30 p.m. Sunday reporting a fatigued man near the Cape Charles Fishing Pier who said he was in the water with a 15-year-old male struggling against a current, and the youth was unaccounted for.

A Coast Guard 25-foot response boat crew from Station Cape Charles and a Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew from Air Station Elizabeth City were on the scene Sunday, along with personnel from the Virginia Marine Resources Commission and Cape Charles Fire Department.

As the search continued Monday, the southern half of Cape Charles beach remained closed, as a number of law-enforcement agencies and the Coast Guard continued searching for Lopez' body.

Dive teams from the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, the Northampton County Sheriff's Office and Chesapeake Police were in the water as two small airplanes circled overhead for hours in an effort to recover Lopez' body.

Cape Charles residents Sue Anglim and Heather McDonald Monday morning tied fuschia ribbons — Lopez' favorite color, they were told — to the gazebo where members of Lopez' extended family were gathered.

"We wanted to do something. The town is just very frustrated," said Anglim, adding, "Everyone is sad and mad and can't believe it has happened again."

An 8-year-old New Jersey boy drowned at the same beach last August.

Another woman, who said she is vacationing in Cape Charles but who declined to identify herself, brought coolers full of sandwiches and other snacks to the gazebo for the family as the search stretched into the early afternoon.